Sixties
Citypresents
a wide-ranging series of
articles on all aspects of the Sixties, penned by the creator of the iconic
60s music paper Mersey
Beat

Gerry
Marsden was born in Liverpool’s Dingle area on 24th September 1942,
the second son of Mary and Frederick Marsden. He lived in Menzies Street,
close to where Ringo Starr was brought up. He left school at 15, initially
working as a coalman, then for a short spell in the Kardomah tea factory
before becoming a railway delivery boy. After his father bought him
an acoustic guitar he decided to form a skiffle group with his elder
brother Fred on drums, Tommy Ryan and Dixie Dean on washboard, Jimmy
Tobin on tea-chest bass and Marty Summers on guitar. Brian O’Hara was
also to join as a guitarist.

Known simply as Gerry Marsden’s Skiffle Group, they made their debut
at the Peel Street Labour Party Club in 1958.Their next
line-up comprised Gerry, Freddie, Jimmy Tobin on bass, Dixie Dean on
washboard and Arthur MacMahon on piano. Gerry then bought his first
electric guitar, a Futurama, at Frank Hessy’s for £40. Now 16, Gerry
named his group Gerry & The Mars Bars and his father, who was managing
the group at the time, wrote to the confectionery company Mars for permission
to use the name. They refused, so Gerry, after watching an athletics
programme on TV in which the commentator mentioned a ‘pacemaker’, decided
to call the group The Pacemakers.

By this time Les Chadwick had joined as bass guitarist. The group were
to have a repertoire which comprised 250 numbers, including songs such
as ‘What’d I Say?’ ‘Skinnie Minnie’, ‘I’ll Be There’, ‘Hallelujah, I
Love Her So,’ ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, ‘Save The Last Dance For Me’
‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow’ and ‘Jambalaya.’

They began to build a strong following on Merseyside and were one of
the groups Allan Williams initially asked to go to the Kaiserkeller
club in 1960, before he’d even considered asking the Beatles. Gerry
didn’t want to give up his job at the time and turned him down.

That
they were a bigger Liverpool name than the Beatles at the time is proven
by the fact that Williams booked them on the Liverpool Stadium bill with
Gene Vincent on Tuesday 3rd May 1960. They also auditioned with the Silver
Beatles for Larry Parnes at the Wyvern Club. When Gerry was approached in
1961 to appear at Peter Eckhorn’s Top Ten Club in Hamburg he agreed and
the group turned professional. The trip was a success and The Pacemakers
returned to Germany on 29th July 1961, enjoying a three-month season at
the Top Ten, also taking local singer Faron with them as a second vocalist.

Merseyside disc jockey Bob Wooler featured a list of his personal Top Ten
favourite local bands in Mersey Beat, with the Beatles in the No.1 position
and Gerry & The Pacemakers at No.2. When the official Mersey Beat Poll was
published in January, 1962, The Beatles and Gerry were voted into the first
and second positions respectively by the readers. Having already signed
up the No.1 group in the poll, Brian Epstein decided to sign up Liverpool’s
No.2 band, and he took over the management of Gerry & The Pacemakers in
May 1962.

He immediately arranged for the Beatles recording manager George Martin
to see them perform in Liverpool, and had them learn ‘How Do You Do It’,
a number penned by Mitch Murray, which the Beatles had originally been given
to record as their second release. Murray had written it with Adam Faith
in mind and was initially unhappy when music publisher Dick James recommended
it to George Martin for the Beatles. The Beatles didn’t like the number
and deliberately recorded a lacklustre version. As James was still convinced
it would be a hit, he suggested it for Gerry and Ron Richards, Martin’s
assistant, recorded the Pacemakers' version – which topped the charts.

The Record Retailer chart (now Music Week) was regarded as the official
chart recognised by the British Phonographic Industry, so when they became
No.1 in the Record Retailer chart, they became the first Liverpool group
to have a chart topper, beating The Beatles, who only reached No.2 in that
chart with ‘Please Please Me (although it topped other charts, such as that
compiled by the New Musical Express). Gerry’s second single, another Mitch
Murray composition, ‘I Like It’, also topped the British charts. Murray
offered them a third number, ‘You Can’t Fool Me,’ but Gerry decided to record
‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ instead, giving him a hat trick of No.1’s, the
first artists in British recording history to achieve such a feat (it placed
Gerry & The Pacemakers in ‘The Guinness Book of Records’). No one has bettered
this feat, although it was equalled by another Liverpool band, Frankie Goes
To Hollywood, exactly 20 years later with, ironically, Gerry’s ‘Ferry ‘Cross
the Mersey’ featured on the flipside of one of the No.1 hits, ‘Relax'.

Hits in 1964 were ‘I’m The One’, ‘Don’t Let The Sun Catch You Crying’,
‘It’s Gonna Be All Right’ and ‘Ferry ‘Cross The Mersey.’ His two final
hits were in 1965, ‘I’ll Be There’ and ‘Walk Hand In Hand.’ Brian Epstein
tried to steer Gerry & The Pacemakers down the same path as The Beatles
– smart suits by Douggie Millins, photos by Dezo Hoffman, a Gerry & The
Pacemakers Christmas Show, a film ‘Ferry ‘Cross The Mersey’, a Gerry &
The Pacemakers monthly magazine and an American tour with an ‘Ed Sullivan
Show’ appearance in May 1964. In fact, Gerry was so successful on the
Sullivan show that he was booked to appear again the following week.

But Gerry & The Pacemakers weren’t The Beatles. Gerry had already tackled
Epstein on the fact that he was taking on too many artists and since he
wouldn’t delegate, this had a bad effect on the artists. As the world’s
No.1 sensation, The Beatles needed a great deal of attention and, as a
result, the other acts suffered.

Gerry eventually became an all-round entertainer, appearing in pantomimes
and children’s television shows. His ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ was adopted
by Liverpool FC supporters and became a football anthem throughout Britain.
Following the Bradford City Football Club disaster in May 1985 in which
55 people were killed when a fire destroyed a stand, Gerry recorded the
number again as a charity disc to raise funds for the relatives of the
victims.
Under the name the Crowd he enrolled 50 artists to join him on the record.
They included Paul McCartney, Zak Starkey, Jim Fagin, Rolf Harris and
Kenny Lynch. The number reached No.1 in the charts in June 1985. This
provided Gerry with another unbeaten record – the first time an artist
had topped the charts with two different versions of the same number.

After some time appearing on the cabaret circuit he re-formed Gerry & The
Pacemakers with different personnel and continues to tour.

You Tube: 'Ferry Cross The Mersey'

He
issued his own tribute to The Beatles in 1985, the album ‘The Lennon/McCartney
Songbook’, with his own interpretations of Beatles classics, Paul
McCartney provided the sleeve notes and wrote: “In Liverpool his group
was probably the biggest competition to the Beatles and I remember
all too well sweating the outcome of our local newspaper popularity
poll (Mersey Beat), hoping that we could scrape together the necessary
points to beat their band. That’s how close it was.”

Gerry’s autobiography, ‘I’ll Never Walk Alone’, written in collaboration
with Ray Coleman, was published in 1993. It formed the basis of ‘Ferry
‘Cross The Mersey: The Liverpool Musical’, which opened at the Liverpool
Playhouse in February 1996 and then moved to London’s West End.

Bill
Harryattended
the Liverpool College of Art with Stuart Sutcliffe and John Lennon and made
the arrangements for Brian Epstein to visit The Cavern, where he saw The
Beatles for the first time. Bill was a member of 'The Dissenters' and the
founder and editor of 'Mersey Beat', the iconic weekly music newspaper
that documented the early Sixties music scene in the Liverpool area and
is possibly best known for being the first periodical to feature a local
band called 'The Beatles'. He has worked as a high powered publicist, doing
PR for acts such as Suzi Quatro, Free, The Arrows and Hot Chocolate and
has managed press campaigns for record labels such as CBS, EMI, Polydor.
Bill is the critically acclaimed author of a large number of books about
The Beatles and the 60s era including 'The Beatles Who's Who', 'The Best
Years of the Beatles' and the Fab Four's 'Encyclopedia' series. He has appeared
on 'Good Morning America' and has received a Gold Award from the British
Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors.